New CEO pledges menu overhaul to reverse slump

Drew Madsen, Noodles & Co’s new CEO, recently told investors that the Broomfield-based fastcasual restaurant chain will overhaul its menu in the coming months in an effort to reverse its recent disappointing financial performance.

The company is in the process of a “multiphase menu transformation, guided by our new ‘contemporary comfort kitchen’ culinary identity,” he said late last week during an earnings call with analysts and investors. “While Noodles has consistently introduced new limited time offering menus in recent years, it has been a long time since we updated our core menu. As a result, our menu looks dated compared to newer fast casual competitors.”

Noodles has hired The Culinary Edge to help shape its ‘contemporary comfort kitchen’ identity.

“Comfort means food that is creamy, cheesy, craveable and satisfying, but increasingly, it also means food that’s wholesome, homemade, nostalgic and nourishing,” Madsen said. “Going forward, our menu will embrace both definitions of comfort and also feature ingredient-forward menu descriptors that conjure craveability.”

The company needs “to do more than offer Italian dishes living beside Asian dishes,” he said. The overhaul “involves new concepts, recipes, prices and a new layout across our menu.”

Noodles plans to “start an inmarket test of the first phase of changes early this summer with a phased rollout anticipated to begin later in 2024 and into early 2025, Madsen said.

In the fourth quarter of 2023, total revenue decreased 8.9% to $124.3 million from $136.5 million in the same period of 2022.

Noodles posted a net loss of $6.1 million in the fourth quarter of last year. In the same period in 2022, the company recorded $1 million in net earnings.

For the full 2023 fiscal year, revenue decreased 1.2% yearover-year to $503.4 million.

Noodle’s net loss grew from $3.3 million in 2022 to $9.9 million last year.

Looking ahead, Noodles expects 2024 sales of $510 million to $525 million.

Madsen, previously Panera Bread’s president, was hired as Noodles’ interim CEO in November 2023 after the ouster of Dave Boennighausen.